By KATIE KLIMACEK
Co-Executive Editor
and
AARON KREIN
Arts Editor
The voices of more than 250 concerned citizens echoed out in front of the State Capitol building this past Saturday morning as the community gathered to protest Donald Trump becoming the 45th President of the United States.
The #NotMYPresident protest allowed people to show up and support the issues they believed were in jeopardy like LGBTQ rights, immigrants, reproductive rights for women, and the environment. The peaceful protest involved participating in the mannequin challenge followed by chants and individuals expressing their views on specific issues.
The protest was organized by three women who initially started their own projects but later assembled. Elizabeth Murad, Kylie A. Gorski, and Sonia Sandoval led the protest with a red heart painted on one of their cheeks to signify their position. According to Gorski, 22, an estimated 600 people were expected to be attendance throughout the day, according to their Facebook group.
“We all met each other doing social justice and organizing social justice at Union College,” said Gorski. “So, we kind of got together virtually and we were all feeling like something needed to be done and took action.”
Gorski said she has fought for “queer” rights her whole college career while Sandoval, 22, has been involved with social justice since she was 17-years-old. She helped build sustainable gardens in Louisiana and is committed to issues regarding the LGBTQ community, immigration, and the environment.
“Environmentalism is extremely close to my heart,” said Sandoval. “That’s why I decided to start this organization, Concerned Earthlings for the Environment for the Future, because we can’t have any of this if we don’t have clean water, clean air, clean anything.”
Numerous individuals held signs such as “love trumps hate” and “stronger together” to demonstrate their views while others included more explicit language. People who protested also created chants like “hey ho, Donald Trump has got to go” and “build bridges, not wall, they are better for us all.”
Beth MacCallum of Albany, one participant who held a “love trumps hate” sign, felt that the protest was very important.
“After this election, I was feeling very helpless and angry and having to explain to my children what was happening in this world was really difficult,” said MacCullum.
MacCullum was accompanied by three of her four children at the protest.
“After going through the different stages of dealing with it, I wanted to show them that what we can do is work to make change and work to make things better is the first step,” said MacCullum.
She discussed the reality of her children having a diverse friend group, and how much of the rhetoric used in the campaign has affected their outlook on everyday life.
“They have a lot of friends who are not white like us, a lot of brown and black friends, and they have a real fear about people they know and love,” said MacCullum. “They said they heard how Trump wants to deport, Trump wants to build walls, and wants to get rid of people who are different. We know that we have an amazing country and we can fight for those people who don’t have a voice and that is our job as Americans.”
Some of the people who came were Saint Rose students, such as English major, Christiane Lee. The 20-year old is nervous that with a Republican-centric government, they will be able to “push through” ideas that Trump won’t veto.
“I fear that Roe v. Wade will be repealed, the marriage equality act will be repealed, and Obama’s Climate Action Plan will be disregarded,” said Lee. “I am afraid that people will be attacked based on race or gender, that we will deny refugees and immigrants a safe place to live, and that our economy will crash and people will lose jobs.”
Lee appreciated that protests like these are organized so individuals can meet people with similar “morals and values” that stand up for what they believe. She also hopes that the turnout will help people be less afraid to share their voices.
Other students in attendance included communications major Anne Vaeth, english majors Hannah Lee and Christina Romeo, and masters in accounting major, Mykha’el Wilson.
Albany resident Eirik Bjorkman, 29, handed out flyers for a monday night educational meeting at the Universal Unitarian Church, presented by Capital District Surge. Bjorkman said that it’s important for the community, especially white individuals, to get into deeper conversations about what can be done as a response to this election.
“Coming from a position of privilege, I know that it’s really important to say how I am feeling and where I am at right now, because I know that a majority of males are not feeling the way that I am,” said Bjorkman. “Setting an example to shift the culture in the little bits that I can are what’s really important. We’ve got a lot of bad cultural norms that are associated with people who have my skin type and body type and that’s not across the board, but it’s wide enough that we need to do something about it and address it.”
Murad, 22, who’s currently a law student, said that rights given to specific groups of people should be handled in a different way.
“Privilege is when you think something is not a problem because it’s not a personal problem for you,” said Murad. “We just need to bring awareness to these issues to all the people that we are generally afraid of the policies that are being instilled right now.”
In the end, Sandoval made it clear what the protest’s main goal was intended to be.
“I think that what we’re trying to accomplish here is education,” said Sandoval. “People are very passionate about individual causes. That’s excellent, but as we found out, our individual causes sometimes distract us from the larger entity that were actually fighting against and so we’re teaching each other about our individual causes in order to unite ourselves.”
Murad said that she believes the protest is more geared toward defending people who are in fear.
“I think the main goal that can be a reality is just spreading awareness that, that kind of rhetoric is impermissible,” said Murad. “It just doesn’t work anymore.”
After being asked by her son if the protest was going to convince people to make Donald Trump no longer be president, MacCallum said “it might help people decide that they can make a change in the future, we hope.”
